Flow development and distribution strategy
Managing flow applications between different IFS instances
Generally customers IFS Cloud environments (at least when Cloud is IFS managed) may consist of up to four IFS named instances in addition to PROD environment.
DEV - core customization or custom projection development
CFG - customer test/development environment
TEST - for customer specific needs (optional)
UAT - environment for user acceptance testing
Other environments may also exists dependent on customer requirements.
Compared to CFG, TEST and UAT environments, the DEV environment is refreshed frequently. Consequently test data has to be manually recreated after each refresh. Therefore Flow development should (?) be done against CFG environment.
Each IFS instance requires its own individual OData configuration in the OData Connector Service and for each flow that specific configuration needs to be selected in the machine steps. Since each IFS cloud and Flow server instance needs it own configuration it's recommended to invest some extra time in the environments architecture planning. Below are a few questions that should be answered to give guidance on your architecture setup.
The way flows are managed in multi IFS Cloud environments will of change dramatically with Flow Connect.
In the beginning of the project describe and define flow development architecture:
how many IFS instances will customer have?
will there be any customizations (core, custom projections) done in the project?
which IFS instances will used in customer testing (of flows)?
how many OData Connector Service instances are needed?
how many Flow servers are needed?
flow distribution strategy between different environments (export/import, subscription)
connector configuration naming from the beginning, changing them later causes unnecessary rework in flows
Pre Flow Connect development / deployment example
Based on the answers to previously stated questions; plan and describe the flow development architecture! Below picture is not an recommendation but is one possible option.
Flow import errors
This chapter lists some common errors occurring when importing flows.
Projection has not been registered
Reason: projection is missing from OData Connector Services
Solution: register projection in OData Connector Services.
Operation expected property
Reason: projection in IFS has been updated (with custom attributes like in example)
Solution: update projection in OData Connector Services.
Expand has new attributes
Reason: reference entity with new attributes (bug?)
Solution: rebuild the step
Object reference not set
Reason: ?
Solution: Fix erronous step in flow.
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